HogWars
by SomeSasDreamer
Summary: An incident of wicked weather causes trouble to a rather unusual family and grants them an unexpected guest, who bears an unsettling message.


After I finally figurred it out: The **cover image** was created **by** **Walter Hood Fitch**  
and 1st published in London, at 1880

 **Concerning the rating** : I am not used to this. We don't do this to literature in Europe (us naughty savages).

Solution:

 **Counter-Indicators (May contain unmarked spoilers)**

\- adult angst (evoked, executed and buried);  
\- casual swearing (stuff people say);  
\- dead animals (generalized details);  
\- footnotes(0);  
\- industrial (cited);  
\- language (used);  
\- magic (sort of);  
\- near death experience (surreal);  
\- non-violent crime (casually practiced);  
\- politics (kind of discussed);  
\- power metal (cited and processed);  
\- procreation (if you don't know that word, you are off the hook; if you do: mentioned and _heavily_ implied);  
\- religion (alluded to);  
\- tech babble (mildly);  
\- words (~3.4k (chapter), ~3,8k (all of this page))

If any of this poses any problems to you, kindly go away, please, you won't find any joy here.  
If you can demonstrate it's not K, it will be M, just to be safe.  
If it's demonstratably MA, it will be taken down in accordance with the terms of ffn and I'll see if to fix the problem or cancel. (Not meant as a threat, just a precaution.)

* * *

 _PTerry,_ let me not be flat.  
 _Kaschte,_ let my soul thrive.  
 _Disney,_ let my heart be pure.  
 _Rowling,_ let my mind be sharp.  
 _Lucas,_ let my hands be strong.  
 _Sabaton_ , let my voice be steady.  
 _Readers,_ would you kindly let me know what you think, please?

 **Dessert Storm**  
 _(wherein Harry nearly dies, is found by the Dursleys and gets shouted at)_

 _A long time apart, on an island far, far away..._

Mr. Owen Dursley, currently residing in Private Driver No 4, was a proud, law-abiding and theoretically taxpaying citizen of the greatest nation in the world. As a matter of fact, it might as well have been the only one nation in the entire world, as far as he was concerned. Anyway, it was the only nation, who's laws he would abide, who's tax collectors he would respect (from a save distance) and which he deemed worthy to honour with his personal citizenship in the first place. It unified the will of the people under The One True Crown on the head of the wise, yet strong and benevolent absolute sovereign in line and on duty for the grater good of all.

Or something to that general effect he would profess to believe were he ever asked.

Since hardly any tax collectors, pundits or political theorists found, first, out about him, and, second, him, none of that theoretical nonsense mattered at all – it was just the way he himself ran things without any real thought about it. What _did_ matter to him, was to get his accursed lands fertile enough to feed his family. What mattered _most_ to him, right now, was to get the other PDs to report in over the radio and check that everyone had made it in safely, preferably after successfully securing the crop. "But don't you take any unnecessary risks, thank you very much!" Normally, contact was a piece of cake, but certain sorts of weather played nasty tricks on the electronics. Specifically, the sorts that would damage the antennas or mess with the airwaves. Like, say, an unseasonal freak sand storm, which right now happened to ravage his property. Owen went through an assortment of well-aged curses under his breath (after all, there was a minor present) as his hands grew more and more shaky with every second of static.

If you wonder about the sand: This is not the island you might be expecting.  
One might even argue it isn't an island at all, as it also holds the proud title of a continent.

A century or the other ago the first traceable Dursley had acquired, by royal decree, the right to claim any treasure, trinket, odd, end, valuable and alike, natural or other, to be found within, above or beneath the Australian area known as The Outback. Whatever fortune that ancestor might have had in live was spent on the investment and then the passage once across the globe. Somehow he managed to survive, procreate and find and set foot on his premises, but success to the enterprise was not at all immediate. So the quest for riches in the land of unnamed opportunities was handed down the lineage. There was simply nothing else to do with the thousands of acres and living within the confines of civilization would enable the authorities to collect some overdue taxes.  
According to the records, Owen or his boys might be able to hit the ten-percent mark of coverage in probing the ground. Treasure hunting at the frontier was all well and fine, but people need food. And shelter. Transportation. Machinery. And as it turned out, children to continue the family and the effort did not exactly grow on trees or raise themselves. Even if, there was a permanent shortage of trees on his property. So the vast majority of time was spent farming next to impossible soil, bartering for equipment and preparing the respective next generation. How nice it was to have a purpose in one's life. Nicer yet, that he was one of the very few and far between lucky Dursleys who had found a wife that would not abandon him after a mere five years near starvation.

Petunia patted him on the shoulder in an attempt to calm him down. "Would you let me, dear? Before your heart explodes?" However she managed to keep her wits together in the literal middle of a damned storm. With a sigh and a somewhat violent jerk of his muscles (as if he were angry at the floor), Owen gave up the seat to his wife and joined his eldest, Dudley, at the multipurpose table of the caravan. Ear pressed to the speaker, Petunia ever so patiently turned the tuner, calling out to anyone who might pick her up in the process.

"...lly positive. Copied Private One with three. - Repeat: Private Two with Tim and Olly positive. Copied Private One..."  
Petunia gave a shout of relieve.  
"Gotcha, Two. Mom here in Four with Dudders and Dad. You alright?"  
"Hi Mom. Affirmative. Also for Jim, Fox and Dan in One at 26.765."  
Well, that narrowed their most pressing worries down to three of the boys. The occupants of No 4 noticed simultaneously that they had hardly breathed for the better part of twenty minutes and took a moment to make up for it.  
"Roger that. We take this as backup every five minutes. You return, I search for three."  
"Aye. Hear you in five."

Five minutes of static passed and Owen grew nervous again.

As Everyone reported back, this time in conference, it turned out that actually, Dan, in a bit of a growing rush lately, hat bumped his head into the door frame but claimed it was nothing serious.

Five more minutes in which Dudley recounted every word he had said today to each and every of his brothers. He wouldn't want – his mind hit a blank. Unspeakable. Unthinkable. Just no. _NO_!

Petunia didn't find Three, Three hadn't found the others.

The static seemed to snicker at them. Taunt them. Sneer at them as it reminded those puny lifelings of the vast, unbroken disregard the elements had for them. The wind rocked the caravan, but that was fine as long as it didn't do any more. It might well turn them over, though, when worse came to bad. Would merely take some extra effort to turn it back and repair. They would (most likely, that is) even be able to recover from being buried under a temporary dune. The true horror was what the sand could do when it got you flatfooted. One day, they had found a perentie after a storm, that hadn't made to safety. Owen had made them all study it thoroughly to get the message across. Emptied eye sockets. Bared flesh. Bones sticking out. "And this is a friggin' lizard, boys", he'd said, "with scales and everything for protection. Which WE lack COMPLETELY." To let it even more sink in, the poor animal found its very final resting place on the dinner table.

crck.

ZZZZZZZZZZZPPPPPPP

"...Paul and Mark in Private Three. Please respond. Paul and Mark in Three, Copy? Copyyyy?"  
Clearly beyond the verge of panic. But finally, they were found. Most of them, Petunia noticed in the back of her mind. But first things first.  
"Copy!", she shouted at the top of her lungs. "Paul, I read you."  
"Mom!"  
Hadn't he been two and a half miles away, the youngest Dursley would have hit her like a bullet.  
"It's all right. It's aaall right, sweety. Everyone's over at 26.765. Backup is at 27.015. Got it?"  
"26.765. Backup at 27.015."  
In the background, she heard Mark repeat after his brother. Despite their young age and obvious distress the exercises did not fail them.  
"Goody. Hear you in a minute or two. I'm proud of you. Both."

Then came the hard part.

Ominous, guildladden silence (relative silence) filled the airwaves.  
"Who's last seen him?", Owen asked with a dry voice, rather coughing out each word.  
"P-Three", Mark answered. "Said he'd spotted something and ran off towards Four. Thought he'd made it there."  
"Shit!"  
"Owen!" A mother is truly a holder of many responsibilities.  
Half a second later, she was back in what Owen called "Staff-Sergeant-To-The-General-Field-Marshall's-Mother-Mode".  
"No point in loosing our heads now. He was inside the plot, there's opportunities for cover. He can make it. We'll know soon enough, so don't worry now."

"Soon enough" emerged far later than anyone was comfortable with.

When the sun finally got visible again, it nearly touched the horizon. Owen, who's temper had risen by the minute, slammed the door open and fell into a sprint at a speed his rather bulky stature should seem to forbid him, weren't it all built of muscle. He did not know what to do this very moment. Adrenalin needed to be burnt. Few seconds later, he suddenly stopped, panting.  
Then, he took in a very deep breath.

There is predator and there is prey. By some trick of nature, humans have it in their guts, that predators are bad news: Ready to kill it, or pretend to be not there, or run, if you must. By trial and error, they learned(1) not to mess with certain alleged prey in the wrong circumstances. Just don't. Unless you need the kill direly, that is. Then, there's forces of nature, which highly encourage you to duck, cover, pray, repeat, until it ceases or you cease. It is, and ever will be, a secret lost to time, how a human mind would react to an Owen Dursley, as perceived from anywhere but behind (and a somewhat safe distance) who is anxious, disoriented, frustrated and very, _very_ angry at the essence of existence itself. And about to shove it around in wide and gracious swings. As a feint hint about the forces involved might serve the carcass of a snake with a brownish circloid where it's head would have laid, that was found two meters or so from where he stood when he presented the universe in general with the following ultimatum:

" **BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!** "  
(Don't be mistaken, though: Owen had been an only son, so "boy" was the only pet name he was familiar with. By some subtlety about modulation of voice, it worked out with nine boys under his protective wings, and in each and every instance everyone knew exactly who was addressed. It's a Dursley-Thing.)  
" **IF! YOU! DARE! TO! LET! IT! HAVE! GOTTEN! YOU! I! PLEDGE! MYSELF! TO! FOLLOW! YOU! TO! THE! DEEPEST! DEPTHS! OF! DEATH! HERSELF! AND! DRAG! YOU! BACK! HERE!** "  
He took in another breath. Before he was done, however, a fountain of sand sprung up, less than half a mile away from him.  
Good sign.  
Gladly, Owen collapsed to his knees, somewhat falling over at the same time and barely caught his fall with his hands. His face contorted and he shed tears his family was never to see. The powers that be were either smart or lucky, that they had not failed him with the boy.

Harry, the odd one of the Dursley-Brothers, was in trouble and he knew it. It didn't take a genius to figure out, given that he was apparently bleeding, buried under who cared how much of sand and completely unable to move or make a noise. He was pretty sure he would suffocate here. Cease to be, trapped within the darkness behind his eyes. Seriously: How stupid did you have to be to get yourself into this kind of situation? – Even more seriously stupid: To beat yourself up for dying while dying: What the hell were you supposed to learn from that sort of thing? For what feasible kind of future? – and so on. _ad infinitum_. – To abandon the security (relative security) of one of the caravans – they provided you with air, water, shovels and emergency rations – for the sake of some odd flicker in your viewing field that might or might not mean anything? As it had turned out, the flicker _had_ have a meaning. In the middle of the rising sands, he had stumbled upon the most unusual of birds, with eyes too big, too yellow and the gray parts of its feathers so bright, he was quite sure it wasn't really gray anymore. The bird was badly worn. Poor thing must've tried to escape the storm by out-speeding it. Obviously hadn't worked. It had fled into the security (relative security) of his arms, and the very moment it landed on him, reflexes unknown to him, yet somehow familiar, had taken over. He had collapsed to the ground, into some sort of fetal position (though he would not know what that phrase meant for a loooong time to come) with his back turned to where the sand came from. After that, his world was all weird sounds and rasping. And now, it was all pressure, darkness, and nothing else to go by. Wait. Something hammered quickly against his chest, twice, maybe thrice the speed of his own heart when under stress. So, maybe that strange bird was still there with him?  
"Sorry", he thought. "Sorry I failed you so badly. You would've been the darling of the family. Our new youngest brother. Dan would've loved that." He was as fond of animals, especially the large-eye variety, as Harry was with the plants. "But hey", a sudden realization struck him, like lightning, vanishing the sadness in an instant, "now at least you won't have to die alone. We both won't. Wish I would've get to know you better, though, little friend."

Then, he heard his father yell for him. From far, very far away. As if he did not know where Harry was. But his anger was as obvious as could get when all you could see was absolute darkness. "Yay. Now I failed no less then eleven individuals at the friggin' same time." Could be worse, but he'd need more oxygen to figure out, how.  
Then, he heard his dad make a threat of some sort. He did not get the actual wording, but Harry was sure it implied he'd regret the day he was born, the day he died, and then some. "Shit shit shit shit _shit!_ " His heart cramped, his soul cramped, his blood was so low on oxygen he could barely maintain consciousness, let alone conscientiousness. Then, suddenly, the pressure vanished, there was an explosion of light and some sort of amusement flooded him like tidal waves.  
"Weird", Harry managed to phrase what he assumed to be his last thoughts ever, "Who'd have thought dying was so much fun? Thanks, dad! You're the best..."

Then, he saw a swirling number eight. Or a swirling infinity-sign, depending on where you rather would fix it, if it were to be fixed in the first place. According to a Latin singer an aleph, which is iconoclastically ironclad-moronic. All that remained to his memory, was what would look like the character "8", save the equation, turning indefinitely, but definitely never turning, at infinite speed, until it made full circle, squared perfectly, then triangulated, going on until the angulae became indefinite, therefore nil, like the 0 of a circle and and and then and back again and the witches marked the _hearts of iron_ (2) for certain, sudden, mostly most moronically darwin award guarantee winning _death from above_ (2). Six! Make of that, what you will. Y0ur will be done. Am. En. Days! Arm. Charge. The bull's horn was not at the ball at all. Of! Sometimes. Killing. Sometimes. Saving. _There is no justice._ (3) Nothing just about ice. Fire! _There is just us._ (3) The u, the s, and the über-ich. _Gegen die Gerechtigkeit!_ (4) But then again, wasn't it that really, _everything_ turned, one way, or the other? _Mein Eigener Vernichtungskrieg_ (4) Things seemed to hate not moving. Hell. I hope, the girls are safe...Just do it, comrade I had to, you have to...may god have mercy on us all...Please let her fight the just war, don't let...DAMN!...Here we go... _We apologize for any inconveniences_ (5): The tunnel at the end of the light will be reached seven minutes late... _seven_ ... _minutes_...(6)GO

D

O

W

N

Next thing Harry knew, he stood upright for some reason he did not know, his dad holding him in one of those bone-crushing hugs, while he, Harry, struggled whatever he had in his thinner-than-Dursley arms to avoid having the bird actually crushed.  
Then, the next thing Harry knew, there were footsteps in the sand, approaching from all directions, while his dad held him at arm's length, his eyes barely controlled, his voice trembling.  
"Young man! You _do_ know the one and only rule when facing The Rising Sands, don't you?!"  
"Yessir!" It was a reflex that didn't require any conscious processing at all: "Do not place yourself in any unnecessary danger, thank you very much! Sir!"  
"So! What say you in your defense, Boy?!"  
Hadn't he been so... _drowsy_ , Harry could have sworn he saw tears running down his father's cheeks. The footsteps had slowed and died away around him. To his slowly, ever so slowly, dawning horror, Harry figured there wasn't anything to say, really. It had been a see-decide-act-sort of thing, no thought involved. So he did the honest thing and opened up his arms, enabling his father to see the weird bird, who, in turn, reacted by way of hissing in a strange, gentle way.  
"kxa?"  
"Sorry, if I bothered you. Couldn't leave the poor guy to die on his own. A life's a life, after all."  
Curiosity in his dad's face and gasping all around him. Harry turned his head around. Mom had raised her hand to cover her mouth.  
"Hedwig?", she asked.  
The Bird narrowed its eyes. Then, Harry felt how it shuffled its weight to one leg and let go with the other's claw. This cute, freaky, rather big bird (as Harry realized suddenly) had its one leg stretched out towards mom and there dangled something down from it, connected with some thread. Then, it sat on both legs again.  
"Okay", Owen made himself heard (much muscle means you need much brain to control it, after all), "I guess, we best head for...", he looked around, "... PD four for dinner and then aim to sort this out."

So, the Dursleys sat around rather a huge table, while the bird, a "snowy owl" as mom explained, sat patiently in the middle of it, snatching whatever one of the boys would toss at "her" (you can tell by the rather high amount of black feathers in relation to the white ones, mom had explained, to Harry's astonishment.) After they all (including their special avionic guest) had been fed and watered, mum cleared her throat, as in preparation to some important announcement.  
"Well, guys, as you all may have figured out by now, indeed I do know this very owl among our midst. I know her from long ago, when she used to be with my sister, your aunt you never met."  
Sadness clouded her features.  
"Among her...people it is tradition to have those...beings as messengers and to keep them company and such like...well", she sighed, "it's rather a complicated story. Anyways...Hedwig?" The owl looked up at her, "if it concerns me at all, I am ready to receive your message", mum said in a rather festive tone of voice.  
The bird, however, briefly shook its head, then turned to face Harry.  
"Oh", Petunia replied, "I...understand...Well, go ahead."  
The owl walked its way across the table towards Harry, then stretched out the leg with the thread that connected to the dangling...something to it.  
"Don't panic", Petunia whispered, "If it's for you, it'll loosen at your touch, and if not, it won't hurt."  
Frowning, Harry touched the thread.  
It loosened, the something fell and unfurled at the same time, revealing itself as some kind of paper with a written text on it.  
Harry read, then frowned again.  
"Well?", dad asked.  
Harry read aloud:

" _To Sirius Black,_  
 _Stuck on USS Bißmarck._  
 _They have novel bomb._  
 _Criusing north of Australia afaik._  
 _U my last hope._  
 _Hermione of the Isle of Men (Northern Sea)_ "

Harry looked up and caught his parents exchange a glance that seemed rather meaningful.

* * *

(0) See?(0,5)

(0,5) Just because it's serious doesn't mean it needs be boring.(1)

(1) Needs not be true at all.

(2) Sabaton.

(3) Terry Pratchett.

(4) Samsas Traum.

(5) Deutsche Bahn.

(6) Samsas Traum and Andromeda ((re-)translated, anyway).(7)

(7) Really, this feel ridiculous.(1) It's supposed to be art(1), not a scholarly essay. There must be a better way to account for quotes who snuck themselves in mid-situation.(1)

* * *

 **A/N** : Had it kind of coming: Write about a sand storm, get one right into my face as I go to the grocery store. Glasses didn't like it. Nor did eyes. Sadly, no birds for me. On the bright side: No Near-Harry-Experience, either. Yay.

 **A/N2** : Since I haven't done fiction in years and English is only my first _foreign_ language: Please _do_ serve me any errors you found :-)


End file.
